Search This Blog

Posts

Truth is not easy. Truth is harsh, uncaring and brutal, even when it is most life-giving and most beautiful. Sometimes we have to lie even to tell the truth. There are moments when we stay silent hoping that the truth which tugs at our soul will some how fade away. We ignore the constant banging of the door and cover our ears with our palms. But this persistent animal stays adamant at our door, persistent and pleading. It stays sobbing besides our doors, sobbing, and one can not step out without trampling over it. At such moments we need poetry. Poetry is a beautifully and cunningly crafted lie which allows us to embrace the truth when we can no longer avoid it. Poet makes up the things. Poie`sis means making. When truth is inescapable, poetry becomes necessary. When truth rains on us with all its acidic waters, poetry mellows it down and ensures that our souls are saved of the blisters. Poems remain timeless and stay hovering over generations like small clouds floating in the skies a…

“Have you noticed how continually in history democracy becomes despotism? People call it the decay of democracy. It is simply its fulfillment.” – Wrote GK Chesterton in his acclaimed political satire, “The Napoleon of Notting Hill”. This is a truth of such great wisdom told in such a simplistic manner. It doesn’t matter if he wrote it in 1905 (about a world of 1984). Democracy is a great idea but its strength lies in the constant change. You stop the churn and staleness of status quo seeps in, the water gets muddier, the stench rises and toads will croak. A monarchy derives its power from status quo, the lack of change, the permanence of structure. Democracy on the other hand, thrives on chaos, change and transient nature of the political structure. Democracy will throw surprises. It will bring people who are watching from the margins, will name the nameless, and raise them to a point where they start resembling aristocratic monarchs, complete with the small coteries as custodians of …

I do not usually review movies. Movie review is tiresome and useless. If my memory serves right, the other movie I had reviewed was Pan Singh Tomar (Read the review here). I am a movie buff and continue searching for new releases to fill my weekend with. Of late, I mostly enjoy children movies, not only for the fun of watching it with daughter, rather for the strength of content. For instance, the animation movie Zootopia had the strongest political satire, most creatively crafted in the recent time that I had seen. I have been contemplating reviewing movies. It might not be as good as the book review which I have been regularly doing, but forgive the slips as it is a start. Pan Singh Tomar was a movie which I loved much, It struck the right chord, hit the perfect note, it was…

Disclosure 1: I had received this book as review copy.Disclosure 2: I have rarely picked a new author's book for review and finished it.

ReviewI have my own apprehension in picking up contemporary writing. Being a writer, for me reading needs to either add to my missing education in literature or needs to have an exceptionally witty plot with serious efforts and respect for written words. Most contemporary work is either chic-lit, which leaves me fuming and with frustration, where the stature of the writer is totally erected on strength of a massive media and marketing campaign. My problem is when the content does not match to the huge build up created, leaves a serious reader, looking for some great content, some good story well-told, largely disappointed. …

"Your majesty, please...I don't like to complainBut down here below, we are feeling great pain.I know, up on top you are seeing great sights, but down here at the bottom, we, too, should have rights." - Dr. Seuss in "Yertle, The Turtle" Indian filmmaker and the man with alternate sexual choices who recently came out of closet, to the chagrin of LGBT activists, a wee bit too late, a wee bit too little, is a single father now. This is the front page news. Social media has sprung into action. This post has been kind of simmering in me for a long time. These are strange times of political correctness. On everything, there are defined positions, which are defined by powers that might be, approved for the lesser mortals as worthy of being taken. If one has some sharpness of the intellect, some audacity of the mind and, well, some brinkmanship of character; one would say that these positions are defined as correct and socially appropriate, not on their merit and substan…

There is unrest on Delhi streets again. Some say, it is the eternal struggle between Liberal and Orthodox thought which is spilling over on the streets. There is inherent fault in this definition. The definition further expands to interpret leftists or communists as Liberals and Right Wing intellectuals (Leftists will not like the term intellectual with Right Wing, is another matter). I have trouble with that. Because this is a dishonest classification. I am told, I am a Right-winger in my approach. But I am, like many called Bhakt in a very derogatory sense, very liberal. While you will not find a communist to come out in public and condemn say a Sitaram Yechury or a Lenin or even China's murderous history of communism. You will not even find the mainstream media people projecting themselves as neutral commentator with known loyalty to Congress which ruled India for larger part of our independent existence, criticizing Congress for their ugliest episodes. On the other hand, Pakis…